There’s a certain irony involved with Warner Archive’s long-awaited Blu-Ray release of SUPERGIRL (**½, 125 mins., 1984, PG)this month. Warner Bros. was supposed to release the film in the U.S. during the summer of 1984, but decided after seeing the final product that they’d be better off not to. Tri-Star – then a fledgling studio funded by the triumvirate of Columbia Pictures, CBS and HBO — then rescued the movie, but cut some 20 minutes out of the completed print and released it during a busy Thanksgiving season during which it was all but lost in theaters.

The latest release from Intrada is a greatly expanded, two-disc edition of Trevor Jones' symphonic score for the 1983 swashbuckler NATE AND HAYES, starring Tommy Lee Jones and Michael O'Keefe.

Varese Sarabande has announced a limited edition CD of Gary Chang's score for FIREWALKER, the light-hearted 1986 action adventure from director J. Lee Thompson (The Guns of Navarone), teaming Chuck Norris and Lou Gossett Jr.; the CD features the same cues as Varese's original LP.

La-La Land has announced their planned slate of releases for August. On August 14th, they will release a two-disc set of Lorne Balfe's score for the just-released blockbuster sequel MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT, and the first soundtrack release of Henry Mancini's score for the 1979 comedy remake of THE PRISONER OF ZENDA starring Peter Sellers, the second in La-La Land's new "Universal Heritage Collection" partnership.

On August 28th, they will release an expanded version of John Williams' Oscar-nominated score for Steven Spielberg's 1998 WWII epic SAVING PRIVATE RYAN; a CD of Ramin Djawadi's music for the new Amazon TV series JACK RYAN, with John Krasinski playing the Tom Clancy analyst-turned-field-agent character previously played by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck and Chris Pine; and a two-disc LP of John Williams' classic score for E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL.

Leading off Twilight Time’s summer roster of limited-edition Blu-Rays is Mark Rydell’s CINDERELLA LIBERTY (***, 1973, 116 mins., R), a flavorful character study of a sailor (James Caan) who falls for a troubled call girl (Marsha Mason) while on an extended “Liberty” pass.

Next week, La-La Land will release a two-disc set of music from the 1988 TV revival of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, featuring music from episodes scored by Lalo Schifrin and Ron Jones. The label plans to release Lorne Balfe's score for the just-released sixth feature in the movie franchise, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT, on August 14th.

James Cameron likely wishes that his inaugural directorial outing was somewhat more distinguished than PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING (**, 94 mins., R), the in-name-only 1981 sequel to Joe Dante’s 1978 cult classic. While nothing to write home about, there are far worse cheapjack horror movies from the early ’80s available on video, and Shout! Factory has delivered a superb Blu-Ray of the film with one of its most satisfying catalog transfers in recent memory.

The July edition of FSM ONLINE is now live. In this month’s cover story, CHRISTOPHE BECK ups the ante for his score to Marvel’s ANT-MAN AND THE WASP. Also in this issue, STEVE JABLONSKY scores the towering SKYSCRAPER; part two of Erik Heine’s JAMES NEWTON HOWARD BUYER’S GUIDE looks at the late ‘90s and early 2000s; an interview with the one and only LISA GERRARD about her seminal work on GLADIATOR; a concert review of

Arthur B. Rubinstein was born in Brooklyn, New York on March 31, 1938. Rubinstein cited as his greatest youthful influences composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein, Klezmer clarinetist Naftule Brandwein (Rubinstein’s own grandfather), and baseball shortstop Phil Rizzuto (whom Rubinstein hoped to someday replace on the New York Yankees). After attending the High School of Music & Art, he earned a Bachelor of Music degree at Yale University, where his friends included John Badham, the older brother of To Kill a Mockingbird’s young star Mary Badham.

For the early part of his musical career, Rubinstein worked largely for the stage, providing incidental music for such acclaimed theater organizations as San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater, the Williamstown Theater Festival, and the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. He served as musical director for two Broadway shows -- Gantry, a musical version of Elmer Gantry starring Robert Shaw and Rita Moreno, which closed immediately after its opening night performance in 1970; and 1975’s Goodtime Charley, an original musical with Joel Grey as the Dauphin of France and Ann Reinking of Joan of Arc. He performed similar duties for stage musicals in Los Angeles, earning an L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award for his work on a production of Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music.

Rubinstein felt his theater scoring experience was the perfect groundwork for his later career: "It’s the kind of training ground that not many film composers have had. It starts you with certain kinds of constrictions, to begin with, because music in the theatre is not approached in the same way as music in films. First of all, because of the kind of instrumentation that you’re limited to, and also because you’re not dealing as much with the technical end of making music, you’re dealing simply with dramatics, with character delineation in music. You don’t have to provide that kind of musical glue around a screen that you often do in writing film music. It’s really down to essentials. That was, really, my beginnings as a film composer."

Intrada announced two new 2-disc soundtrack releases for this week, both featuring large-scale orchestral adventure scores by beloved composers, from the turn of the new century.

THE MUMMY, directed by Stephen Sommers, was a 1999 loose remake of the Universal horror classic that combined Raiders of the Lost Ark-style action-adventure with state-of-the-art visual effects to make one of the biggest hits of the summer movie season. The scoring assignment went to Jerry Goldsmith, who had been originally attached to score Sommers' Jungle Book remake and who had just scored Deep Rising for the director. The end result was one of Goldsmith's biggest box-office hits (spawning a sequel, a prequel-spinoff to the sequel, an additional sequel, and a recent semi-remake), and one of his last great adventure scores (though, surprisingly, Goldsmith was highly dissatisfied with the film, the scoring experience or both, and declined to work on the inevitable sequel). The Intrada release features his full original score as well as alternate cues, plus the original soundtrack CD sequencing.

THE MUMMY RETURNS, that inevitable sequel, was an even bigger box-office hit, reuniting Sommers with stars Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz and adding Dwayne Johnson in a small role as The Scorpion King to set up its own spinoff. This time the scoring duties fell to Alan Silvestri, who was in the middle of a hit streak including such smashes as What Lies Beneath and Cast Away, and his epic score was a rousing, traditionally symphonic work featuring all-new thematic material. As with such past scores as Thunderball and Tomorrow Never Dies, the soundtrack had to be finished before the score had completed recording, so major material was left off the commercial release. The Intrada release features the full score -- nearly two hours of music - plus extras (Silvestri went on to score Van Helsing and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra for Sommers).

The latest release from La-La Land presents Harry Manfredini's scores for FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER and FRIDAY THE 13TH: A NEW BEGINNING on a two-disc set, featuring the same sequencing as their earlier boxed-set of Manfredini's first six Friday scores.

Intrada has postponed their latest soundtrack release to next week, when they will also be releasing another new soundtrack CD previously scheduled for the week after.

The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences has announced the nominations for this year's Primetime Emmys, including the following music categories:

OUTSTANDING MUSIC COMPOSITION FOR A LIMITED SERIES, MOVIE OR SPECIAL (ORIGINAL DRAMATIC SCORE)

Big Mouth: Am I Gay? - "Totally Gay" - Music and Lyrics by Mark Rivers
A Christmas Story Live! - "In The Market For A Miracle" - Music and Lyrics by Benj Pasek, Justin Paul
The Good Fight: Day 450 - "High Crimes And Misdemeanors" - Music & Lyrics by Jonathan Coulton
If You're Not In The Obit, Eat Breakfast - "Just Getting Started" - Music by Dave Grusin, Lyrics by Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman
Saturday Night Live: Host: Chance The Rapper - "Come Back Barack" - Music and Lyrics by Eli Brueggemann
Steve Martin & Martin Short: An Evening You Will Forget For The Rest Of Your Life - "The Buddy Song" - Music and Lyrics by Steve Martin